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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Ashenfelter, Orley (Princeton University); Jurajda, Štepán (CERGE-EI) |
| Abstract: | Thanks to standardized work protocol and technology of McDonald's restaurants, the hourly wage of McDonald's Basic Crew enables wage comparisons under near-identical skill inputs and hedonic job conditions. McWages capture labor costs in entry-level jobs, while the Big Macs (earned) Per Hour (BMPH) index measures corresponding purchasing power of wages. We document large and growing geographical wage differences in standardized jobs using data covering most U.S. counties during 2016-2023. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, there was no BMPH growth where minimum wages stayed constant, but the pandemic wage increase, which diminished the importance of minimum wages, was stronger in these areas. |
| Keywords: | McWages |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17142 |
| By: | Kelsey J. O'Connor |
| Abstract: | The immigrant (foreign-born) population increased by 32 million in total across 37 European countries from 1990 to 2019. Much of this movement was from east to west. Indeed, both the total and foreign-born populations declined in the former Eastern Bloc over this period. Such demographic shifts could be expected to affect both the immigrant destination and origin countries in diverse ways. However, we find no evidence of positive or negative impacts on aggregate subjective well-being, among both the destination and origin countries. Immigrants, in contrast, experienced increased well-being, converted to monetary terms, in excess of £25, 000 per person. Previous research had reduced scopes, e.g., covering destination countries or impacts on income only. We offer more comprehensive evidence, in terms of country and period, and by assessing impacts on subjective well-being, which implicitly includes all of the factors perceived to be important to people, both economic and non-economic. |
| Keywords: | immigration, emigration, migrants, life satisfaction, happiness |
| JEL: | I31 J15 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1461 |
| By: | Joanna Tyrowicz (Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE); University of Warsaw; Institute of Labor Economics (IZA); Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE)) |
| Abstract: | While women constitute 25% of the board members in private European corporations, firms with no women are dominant and merely 10% of firms report more than one woman in the boardroom. We leverage new data, covering 5 million companies from 29 European countries spanning 1986-2020. Using this data, we provide novel stylized facts about the phenomenon of token women in European corporate boardrooms. We emphasize the differences between two types of situation when the corporate boardroom hosts a singular woman: the appointment of the first woman and the barriers to further rise in diversity. We thus contribute to improving our understanding of the conflict between the tokenism hypothesis and diversity spillover hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | gender, board, diversity |
| JEL: | C81 J16 M12 M51 J24 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fme:wpaper:97 |
| By: | Thibaut Lamadon (University of Chicago); Jeremy Lise (Cornell University); Costas Meghir (Yale University); Jean-Marc Robin (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops the nonparametric identification of models with production complementarities, worker-firm specific disutility of labor and search frictions. Mobility in the model is subject to preference shocks, and we assume that firms can write wage contracts. We develop a constructive proof for the nonparametric identification of the model primitives from matched employer-employee data. We use the estimated model to decompose the sources of wage dispersion into worker heterogeneity, compensating differentials, and search frictions that generate between-firm and within-firm dispersion. We find that compensating differentials are substantial on average, but the contribution differs greatly between the lowest and highest types of workers. Finally, we use the model to provide an economic interpretation of several empirical regularities. |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2396 |